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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28078902">Evermore</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/daesies/pseuds/daesies'>daesies</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Boruto: Naruto Next Generations, Naruto</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Bittersweet, Blank Period, F/M, Romance, no beta we die like men</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 18:34:03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,328</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28078902</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/daesies/pseuds/daesies</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Falling in love was never up for him to decide, especially not when it came to Sakura. Their lives, their very souls, are tremendously tangled up in one another. He was, simply put, destined to fall in love with her.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Haruno Sakura/Uchiha Sasuke</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>87</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Evermore</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This is my way of processing how much I love Taylor Swift's Evermore TT___TT &lt;3 I hope everyone enjoys! </p><p>© Masashi Kishimoto</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>With the rinnegan came the realization that no matter how much Sasuke tried to not fall for his teammate (his best friend, his lover, his <em>home</em>), it was inevitable. There are some things, he realizes, that end up in the hands of destiny – not to be mistaken by fate. Surely, there have been things he has <em>decided</em>, like when he decided to leave her on that stone-cold bench the night he left, tracing the pads of his fingers across the soft of her face before walking away. Or, even, when he decided to finally go back home with Naruto’s help, his light, his guidance, his understanding.  </p><p>These have been part of a carefully crafted predisposed fate – a fate he wanted to make happen, whether he realized it or not. But falling in love was vastly different. Falling in love was never up for him to decide, especially not when it came to Sakura. Their lives, their very souls, are tremendously tangled up in one another. Thread so thick that he couldn’t even cut it with a knife, or two, no matter how hard he tried. He was, simply put, destined to fall in love with her.<br/>
<br/>
He was destined to be not just the one to break her heart, but also be the one to help mend her heart back into place. And through this careful love and mending process, it would help him learn how to <em>heal</em> again, how to love again. How to embrace his scars with the help of her hands (oh, her hands. His pride in life. He's held onto them countless times. Sometimes, he doesn't even realize he's holding onto her so tightly, it feels like he'll crack her delicate bones. To him, she is the finest of China, so gentle to his touch, so small in his arms). Hands that hold him during those long, agonizing nights that he wakes up in cold sweat, ghosts of his past so clear behind his eyelids it terrifies him.</p><p>(Blood and violence, and his father's stern face, and his mother's gentle smile. A smile that reminds him of Sakura's. And then always Itachi, and his pain, and all the things he wants to share with his brother, his brother, his blood on Sasuke's hands, his eyes Sasuke's eyes -) </p><p>It terrifies him every time she walks out of their (hers, really) shared apartment, face red in frustration and tears in her eyes. He's not the best at their relationship, he tries to be. But Sakura, patient as always with him, is so understanding even after he makes her feel like their foundation is crumbling under their feet. All because of his own short comings. Ah, but she comes back; and then it's his turn to hold her silently, his own way of apologizing for making her cry. He always lets his lips linger over each of her eyelashes, and she hugs him tighter each time. He holds her in return just as tight, worried she'll slip away like sand from an hourglass, their time together coming to an end.</p><p>It terrifies him when he’s away from home for too long, wondering if she met someone better than him; someone worth her time and love. It terrifies him when he hears she’s out on a mission, wondering if she’ll ever comeback (<em>but that’s just fear</em>, he reprimands himself, <em>the woman I fell in love with is strong</em>). It terrifies him when he comes back from those missions that feel like an eternity has passed without her next to him, and finds she’s not sleeping soundly on their bed. Just to later find out she had a nightshift at the hospital.<br/>
<br/>
And she wakes him up at the break of dawn, smelling like antiseptic and sakura and sweetness, her tired arms and rough hands hugging him from behind. She scoops him up in her arms and he wakes just enough to register her warmth pressed against him, holding him to her, her love seeping through all of her gentle curves and sharp edges. It bleeds onto their bed, in the space between them, and it heals him. It takes away his worries so quickly, it terrifies him even more. The power she has over him. <br/>
<br/>
He holds her forearm with his good arm, hand gentle on her skin. Sakura kisses the back of his neck, a murmur of his name on her lips. “Good night, <em>Sasuke-kun</em>.” And his heart soars. It weeps with the red that comes from her vast amount of love. She's like a talisman, ridding him of his demons with her loving smiles and gentle caresses, and he could never let her go. Too afraid to, more afraid of losing her than anything else he's ever endured before. </p><p>And it reaffirms what he already knows: This is their destiny.</p><p>Sakura knows it, too. She knows it because she knows she’s liked him since she was seven. She knows because she told him she loved him when she was thirteen (so, so in love with him it felt like she was breaking in half and getting put back together in seconds, her heart ripping apart time and time again). She knows because she told him, one drunken night, she was still in love with him. “Even after all this time, after trying to make myself get over you, I still…” But a few weeks after Naruto’s wedding that he asked her about that blurry night, she wrote back to him:</p><p> </p><p>Even if you don’t love me back, I’ll still love you. I’ll be happy to know you’re happy, Sasuke-kun<em>. </em><br/>
There was happiness because of you, but there will be happiness after you, too.</p><p>
  
</p><p>She knows she’s destined to be with him, because she’s willing to let him go if he ever tells her what she fears is true: That just like the team he established for himself when he was away, he’s waiting for the day to be able to soar freely. Just like <em>taka</em>. What scares her is that, if he does, she’s never going to see him ever again.</p><p>But how could he not be in love with her? How could he ever deny to himself that she’s the only woman that has ever made a fire ignite in his weary bones? During all of the years he’s spent away from her, she was always in his dreams, keeping him awake. It’s her, he notes, and it’ll always be her. It's been her since before they were both born, and it'll still be her even when they are both gone.</p><p>He doesn’t know how to tell her, but he hopes his actions speak for his heart. He hopes that every time he’s the one that kisses her, his love lingers on her lips, sinking into her skin and warming up her bones the way she does for him. He hopes that every time he offers her a smile, she knows she’s the only one with the right to appreciate those sides of him. He hopes that every time he knocks on her door after a long mission and she opens up, radiating like the goddamn sun, she understands it’s because she’s his home.</p><p>He hopes, he hopes.<br/>
<br/>
He hopes.<br/>
<br/>
One day, he’ll tell her about all of their lifetimes. He’ll tell her about all the worlds he’s been to. Worlds in which he’s in love with her every single time. Even in the worlds where she doesn’t exist, he still <em>is</em> in love with her. In worlds he’s gone, she waits for him. Or mourns for him. Or keeps her love for him near to her heart. He wants to tell her that what they have – what they have transcends space and whatever they could ever understand about <em>time</em>. He wants to, so badly, tell her that in their next life he’ll fall in love with her again.<br/>
<br/>
Because he’s destined to be with her, time and time again. And she knows it, too. </p>
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